GEOG_130 (6/26)

3
Pages

113
Views

Unlock Document

School

University of California - Berkeley

Department

Geography

Course

GEOG 130

Professor

Nicole C.List

Semester

Summer

Description

GEOG 130 (6/26)
Food: Equity and Social Justice
● Specifically in cities
Key Points
● Access to healthy food is worse in neighborhoods of colour and of low income
● Systemic problems; not isolated cases
● What we take for granted depends on where we live
● Diets not only depend on taste, it depends on access as well
● Low Income communities are “food deserts”
○ Little accessibility to fresh, healthy food
○ Lack supermarkets
○ Food from fast food outlets, convenience stores, liquor stores
○ If perishable, generally unaffordable (small store)
○ Lack of culturally appropriate food
○ Lack of community gardens
○ Lack of reliable public transportation
○ “Bodega” corner stores
● What are some of the structural problems?
○ Loss of agricultural land
○ Suburbanization and consolidation
■ White flight causes shopping habits to change (stores follow)
■ Creation of Supermarkets (large) versus smaller stores = people could
shop at one place and less often
■ Locations consolidated into a single chain
■ Older stores closed
○ Food distribution systems
■ Food distribution centers instead of little trucks delivering one commodity
■ Loading docks cause stores to grow in size
○ Zoning and other jurisdictional problems
■ Areas “zoned” for certain uses
■ Restrictions on what can be sold in certain places
○ Government subsidies
■ More money is given to cash crops that feed into fast foods = cheaper to
feed the family on the short term
○ Urban Development Patterns
■ Lack of parking
■ Neighborhood not monetarily viable
■ Streets are too narrow
■ Pattern reinforced by zoning that makes it hard to bring in resources to
older cities
● Not cost effective to have smaller stores
○ Market Misinformation ■ Grocery chains often bypass low-income neighborhoods because they
use the same tools to evaluate inner city markets as suburban markets,
missing many important factors
● “Money spent on food” includes money spent going to outside
restaurants
● Neighborhoods w/ illegal activity do not report income
○ Leakage
■ Go to other neighborhoods to buy their goods
■ Neighborhoods have their own credit system that makes them work in low
income neighborhoods
● Concentrated Buying Power
○ Retailers look at an area’s average household income
○ For low income neighborhoods, needs to look at specific neighborhoods instead
of areas
● Undocumented Income
○ Income not taxable or recorded as household cost = data is not recorded
● Why does this matter?
○ Health issues in communities with less access
○ Issue of equity of choice
● De